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Nature 406, 683-685 (17 August 2000) | doi:10.1038/35021159

Microbiology: Lipid lunch for persistent pathogen

William Bishai

The bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis is a bit of an oddity among microorganisms that invade the human respiratory tract. Most of them, such as Streptococcus pneumoniae, enter their host by colonizing the unsterile upper respiratory tract, waiting for a breach in host defences, and then mounting a burst of replication.